Why an Understanding of Lit Review is Beneficial for Your Graduate Studies

If you have signed up for a Master's or a Ph. D program at a University, then I have something to tell you: You’re a bold, courageous human being.

Everyone knows that graduate studies are not for the faint-hearted, the lazy folks. Aside from lectures and class work, you’ll be called for a presentation and tests, not to talk of daunting essays, research papers, and thesis or dissertation writing at the tail end of your graduation. ?

You’ll be subjected to a lot of academic writing tasks, which require tons of research and reading, and reviews of related literature. In today’s post, I’ll be focusing on the literature review aspect of academic research—for graduate social science students.

A literature review is an important research component that will help you write with integrity and grow your scholarly muscles. In short, learning what literature review is and why it is a crucial technique in academic research will help your journey as a graduate student and saves you many more sleepless night.

What is a Literature Review?

According to John Creswell, the research method guru, a literature review is “a written summary of journal articles, books, and other documents that describes the past and current state of information on the topic of your research study.”

Two things stand out from Creswell’s definition: Familiarity and summary.

·???????In academic writing, your literature review should demonstrate not only to your supervisory board but also to your readers that you’re conversant with your research area, and you’ve deep knowledge about your topic. It should demonstrate that you’re familiar with the ongoing debates in your chosen area and that you know the big, popular voices in your research niche.

?

·???????Only when you understand the ongoing conversation around the social problem that you’re about to write (information about your topic) you can be able to summarize that information. In doing the summary, your task is to synthesize the literature—examine the main argument of the individual researchers, and report the most relevant arguments related to your topic.

Understanding how to do these is vital because it will help you design a framework for crafting an original piece of research. If you don’t take literature review more seriously, you’re on your own…

“Why Should I Care?”

We may think that a literature review is not something that we should worry about.

“I know that it’s a crucial aspect of research,” you might say. “Once I download a dozen papers and summarize them, and be able to convince my supervisory committee that I know the existing debates in my topic, I’m good to go.” That might be true for an undergraduate student, but for graduate students like you, you need to go deeper.

Remember that your program is preparing you to become a scholar, which is why you need to care more about the ins and outs of literature review.

Beyond impressing your supervisory committee, you need to know the importance of literature review because it can help you in many ways.

As a graduate student, it can help improve your critical thinking skills, which you need to criticize other people’s work and identify the research gaps. Think of a review from a broader perspective: It is not about you as an individual; it is about the general body of scientific knowledge.

What do I mean by that?

Let me explain: A review of related literature is about adding value to an existing academic conversation. Academic research is more like a public square involving different participants (scholars) that interacts and converse at a professional level.

As Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkeinstein illustrate in their most important work, They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing, “to make an impact as an [academic] writer, then, you need to do more than make statements that are logical, well supported, and consistent.” The scholars continued, “You must also find a way of entering into conversation with the views of others, with something ‘they say.’”

In other words, a literature review challenges you to understand who says what, why do they say it, how do they say it, and where they get it all wrong.

Once you’ve clarified those questions, you can introduce such questions, answer them, and use your original views to enter the conversation with pride. Because literature reviews are about contributing your new knowledge to the stock of scientific knowledge. Do it right, and you’ll be counted as an important contributor—as another scholar who has added another knowledge in the specific academic discipline.

If you don’t care about writing a comprehensive, effective literature review, you’ll not know how to do it better, and can never contribute new knowledge in your field.

Conversely, if you care more about it, learn how to do it properly, you’ll know how to do it better, add value in the stock of knowledge. Therefore when you complete a good literature review, Creswell said, you “provide evidence that educators need your study.” From there, your contribution will be further examined and interrogated.

People will take you seriously; they’ll quote you and cite you because you have made an important contribution in your field.

And that will add color and credibility to your scholarship.

What is the Benefits of Literature Review for Graduate Students?

There are many benefits of literature review in research.

One is that it helps researchers come up with original work and the other is it helps researchers avoid duplicating studies. But more so, one of the most essential benefits of a literature review is its importance in sharpening graduate students’ critical thinking skills. ?

What you should know is that by reviewing literature, you are not only examining what other scholars have documented about your niche; you’re also interrogating what they have said, looking at areas of disagreement and issues in thoughts and methodology.

In conducting an effective review, therefore, you’re more likely to raise a question (“how does Enlightenment shape the historical development of sociology?”) or even question the question raised in the previous studies (“how significant is the Enlightenment project in the development of sociology?”)—an exercise that will help you improve your critical thinking, one of the most essential skills you need as a graduate students.

A literature review also helps you find a gap in the research.

The task of every research is to produce another original study that will improve existing knowledge in that topic. When you interrogate previous studies, you’re working towards finding new knowledge and adding it in the existing one. For example, let us assume that you’re writing a thesis on “the impact of the Enlightenment on the development of sociology.”

The task before you is to write a study that will improve the literature on that subject. You’re not simply regurgitating what has been written by a dozen other scholars on the age of reason; you are suppose to come up with a fresh perspective, a new angle, a new worldview that improves the subject.

Finally, literature review also helps you position your argument in the existing study.

You might think that writing a literature review is just about writing words on paper. It’s much more than that. It is about coming up with a strong thesis (argument) and boldly sharing that argument in writing—in an ongoing discussion.

Conclusion

A review of related literature is about summarizing and synthesizing past academic essays, journals, books and articles. While it takes time and efforts to review an original study, the whole process is worth it, because the lit review process helps you lay a strong foundation for the production of new knowledge.

·???????It helps you fine tune your ideas

·???????It ensures that you conduct an original work, not duplicate what has been produced by other researchers

·???????It also helps you develop a critical mind for critiquing and finding gaps in other works, thereby contributing new knowledge in the scientific community.

As a graduate student, you must appreciate the benefits of literature review and work hard to master how to do it better. Remember that as your program prepares to make you a scholar, the buck stops with you: Are you going to put in the effort to master this great academic skill or hid behind your comfort zone and pretend that “no one can master this daunting academic task?”

My last words to you are these: By signing up for a graduate program, you’ve already proven to the world that you’re a superhero. Get dirty to master the intricacies of literature review writing, and complete your program—with integrity.?